Tradition, Jealousy & Revenge

"We'll hold him for yeh." The voice came from one of the larger of seven youths who were down a shadowed side ally in one of the rougher parts of town. The speaker was one of two large lads currently holding a third fit looking youth with distinctive chain tattoos against a wall.
"An we already softened him up for yeh too," added the second. "All ya gotta to is hit him.. then yer even."
A lighter built kid, probably about 13 stepped up. Leif recognised the way the boy was dressed and spat towards him. A little blood from an already split lip mixing with the saliva.
"Should have..." The kid hit him hard in the stomach causing him to stop mid sentence, the spikes on the back of the kids hand gashing him slightly in the process. "Known. You Southern school brats have no tradition. We don't," he was hit hard again this time a forearm to the face, "settle..."
"Shut the heck up! Sorenson." The kid yelled then kneed Leif in the groin. "Tradition's why you other schools is gunna loose."

"Hey, what are you doing?" Anu called out, and then he suddenly wished he hadn't.
All the guys turned to look at him. He had passed by and heard the commotion down an alley. If he turned to call the guards back out on the street, it may have been too late. Still, he held his ground. He wasn't sure if they had noticed, but he was wearing his gauntlets. He was on his way from the arena to his school, so he was still in his Fistfighting outfit. He tensed his knuckles and saw that they weren't going to say anything right away.
"Let him go..."

One of the larger ones, who was currently just standing by, turned and looked towards Anu. He had the look of a soldier, about him but was more then likely a mercenary. One with some experience by the look of the scars.
This young man laughed. "You're," he pointed an armoured fist at Anu, "next... Champ." He shouted in a derisive manner. "I'd shove off while yeh got the chance." He then nodded to his three palls who all grinned and hefted clubs.
"Bet he's a squealer." One said with a gruff chuckle as he sneered. All three of them started toward Anu, fanning out as much as they could in the alley.

Anu played it safe. He turned to face the middle one sideways, keeping his back to some and his front to the others. With his left arm up in front of his face, he seemed as if he was ready to jab someone with his elbow. His right hand was clenched and around the other side of his body, ready to throw in a strong punch. He made no offensive moves.

The two holding Leif held him in place even though he was now doubled up and the smaller kid kept a regular rain of blows, all of them the kinds of strikes that would give a fighter negative points in the ring and most with all his strength behind them.
The three Mercenaries, all of them close to Leif's age or a year or two older, were each armed with a club and all had some pieces of armour - mostly chain and leather. One had a heavy gauntlet that looked like a bastardisation of a Fighter's gauntlet, the edges of overlapping plates over the hand and wrist clearly sharpened to an edge.
This one moved first, from behind Anu. He twirled his club so it was running back along the side of one forearm, rolled his other hand into a loose fist (exposing the sharpened leading edges) and swung. It was in part a simple, low level, Fighter's strike aimed for the side and back near the kidneys but with an added twist and sweep to bring the edge to bare as though slashing with a knife.

Anu let the young one slash with confidence, but he hopped forward, landed on one foot in a half squat, and, when the slash had passed, hopped backwards and gave the kid an elbow between the eyes. There was the sound of bone breaking and Anu readied himself again, feet outwards and back curved.
"Even with a stupid blade extension like that, you need to aim farther than your target is," he said as he heard the kid fall over. "Who's next?"

The instant the first went down the other two moved in a clearly coordinated attack. One swung with his club but that was a feint, attempting to put Anu slightly off guard while the 'leader' jumped past small fighter then turned and swung twice.
Once with his club and once with his other fist, both in quick succession. Both swings well placed and as Anu had pointed out to the first, his aim was well past Anu's body.
The two holding Leif both let him slump to the ground since he'd taken quite a beating by this point, and went to join the fight against Anu. The kid who'd been hitting Leif laid in a few more nasty punches and strikes, even kicking Leif with his feet.

Anu saw by the first guy's footing that he wasn't meaning to hit Anu, so he backed away from that swing and then concentrated on the double-swing behind him. He rolled forwards, but moved backwards, and as he ducked clean under the clumsy swings and passed underneath the brute, he put out an arm and gashed him badly on the lower leg. Jumping back to his feet, he leant back and aimed a powerful high kick for the centre of this guy's back.

Well, it would have been a bad gash if not for the heavy leather concealed under the leader's pants. He staggered just a little when Anu's kick landed. He grunted slightly at around the same time but there was a distinct heavy thud associated with the kick.
He chuckled slightly and turned faster then Anu might have expected. Fast enough that he caught the small boy still in the air and grappled his leg using it as a leaver to through the boy to the ground.
The two that had been holding Leif joined at about this time and along with the one who had feinted earlier started swinging blows, all clearly intended to land.
Leif, meanwhile grabbed the fighter from the Southern School by the leg - a move the kid clearly didn't expect. He quickly had the boy grappled in a wrestling hold face down in a pile of garbage. Maintaining the hold, he looked toward Anu.

Anu slammed front-first into the ground and cried out. He tugged his leg free and scrambled away quickly. He saw the desperate look in Leif's eyes and then looked up at the leader again. He didn't want to appear too confident. That wasn't what he did.
"You need this many of you to take on someone my size?" he teased, still sitting down and leaning against the wall. "That's pathetic."
He jumped to his feet quickly and took a defensive position again. Both gauntlets were raised high and his back was to the wall.

Leif kept the southern school student pinned and ran his tongue along his split lip and spat some blood. "It's what they do Anu." He said as he tugged the kid's belt free and used it to hog tie him. "Can't beat us in the ring, try to convince us to leave our schools. That doesn't work... slow us down or try to eliminate us from competition for a while."
The leader of the thugs chuckled at this. "See, he knows how this is goin. I don't need this many to take you on. This is to get you both outa the ring for a while." He nodded at his companions in turn. "Not ta mention these here lads has been wantin ta challenge some higher ranks but never got the chance."
"Might learn just how ya do it... gotta be some kinda 'magic'," another chimed in spitting as he said magic, "or secret. We gets paid either way."

"You'll never learn," Anu said sharply. "You're just not good enough, because you've thrown away your standards. Without them, you are nothing."
He turned and now stood more front-on, indicating someone to come at him with one hand.
"Though, if you want to see some 'magic', come and try me," he added with a smile -- something that was nary seen on his face. "I promise you'll see something... spectacular..."

The leader seemed to consider this for a moment then he signalled to the rest of his buddies. "Form us a ring, you two," he pointed at two in particular, "make sure Sorenson doesn't join in." While the leader spent some time flexing and loosening up, the rest of his guys formed a rough ring most of them facing inwards but the two he singled out facing out to keep an eye on Leif.
The last thing the leader did before stepping in to attack Anu was scrape some form of symbol on the ground with his boot. His blows were quick and precise, the first two landing before Anu could dodge away and he hit hard enough to knock the much smaller boy back a short distance.
Rather then dodging Anu's return blows he stayed in place and shoved, deflecting Anu bodily towards the guys forming the perimeter of the ring who would then grab and hold or flat out kick or shove him back into the middle.
---
Meanwhile Leif was still holding the kid from the southern school face down in the garbage.

Because the first attacks were so fast, Anu was caught off guard. He took some serious blows to his stomach and chest and he was then thrown into the other boys, where they kicked him back into the middle. Anu coughed up blood as he bent over to catch himself, but the leader repeated and Anu was thrown back and forth twice more, this time stumbling onto the ground on his front.
The boys let him get up, probably because it was fun to see this normally masterful smaller boy trembling and now dirty. This time, the boys at the back came and grabbed Anu's arms and middle, holding him in place while the leader approached. The brute drew back a fist to deal one final blow to Anu's face, which could prove extremely dangerous. However, as this punch came in, Anu lowered his head in such a way that the leader's knuckles met the top of Anu's skull and ricochet off, most likely breaking something in the big guy's hand. As the leader paused and tried to realise what had happened, Anu kicked off the ground, caught the leader's neck between his legs, and yanked himself free of the grasp of the others. As Anu extended his arms forth and continued to roll forwards, he pulled the leader over backwards with him, and somehow, the boy flipped over safely on his hands and plucked the leader right off his feet, sending him somersaulting backwards and landing front first on the ground with a horrible thump. Anu landed from his handstand and went straight to help Leif, who was now unguarded while the group went to check and see if their leader was all right. Of course he wasn't all right.
"Are you hurt?" Anu asked, leaning to check Leif for wounds and assuming nobody else would attack him for the time being.

Leif prodded at his split lip with his tongue and there were bruises showing but nothing too serious. "I've had worse," he said with a shrug then stood pulling up the boy from the southern school as he did. "I just wanted to make sure this brat didn't run off and get some help."
Leif then tugged at the southern school kids clothes apparently looking for something but stopped and looked towards the thugs. "Lets go," he said to Anu. "I'm pretty sure this kid has a clue on him somewhere but I need time to find it."

Anu frowned at this strange new boy but said nothing. He seemed concerned for Leif and had either forgotten about or was ignoring the others, who were attending to their leader. He stood up too and looked both ways down the alley.
"Where are you... we going? We should get you to a medic first." Though Anu had a limp and some serious bruises himself, he didn't seem to care.

Leif bent over to show Anu the back of his head. Anu might notice he has a little difficulty bending over, probably bruised ribs but he doesn't wince or anything. "Am I bleeding?" He asks but doesn't give Anu enough time to answer. There was a sizeable lump suggesting he may have been hit on the back of the head with one of those clubs but no blood. "If I'm not I don't need a medic."
Leif then straightened up again. "Were are we going. Back to my school. The south school has been cheating for months now. Bunch of the East school fighters have been unseated or can't fight at the moment and just last week my little brother almost got crippled by this kid." He gives the younger south school fighter a rough shake and a smack to the back of his head. "My uncle said we needed proof to take before the FFC."

Anu seemed genuinely confused. Perhaps it was the blow he just took to the head, but he didn't catch much of what Leif said, and the words that did reach him made no sense. However, when he heard the mentioning of the FFC he grew quite serious.
"Proof," Anu said, the words just reaching his mind. "There is proof at your school? Ah, it doesn't matter. I'll follow you. Lead the way."

Leif shook his head a bit and took a firm hold of one arm of the unidentified boy from the southern school, roughly pulling him back towards a main street and then heading in the direction of his school.
"Nah, you sure you're head's ok Anu? This kid is the proof. Or he will be when we get him to talk."

Anu was about to insist he was fine when both boys were grabbed from behind by strong hands. A large cart with a dark canvas cover was passing by, blocking them both from view for only a moment, but when the cart had passed they were no longer standing in the street. In darkness they were held down and something was put to their noses and mouths, soon rendering them unconscious.
When Anu came to, all he could see was black and all he could feel and smell was dust and stone. He was lying against something quite solid, propped up roughly like a child's doll. He tried to open his eyes but only saw painful blurriness, and the rest of his body hardly responded. His gauntlets had been taken, too.
"Leif?" he managed to croak.

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